


No such thing as heroes

by AkaiMirage



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, One Shot, POV Oswald Cobblepot, Time Travel, no one likes sofia falcone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:48:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkaiMirage/pseuds/AkaiMirage
Summary: Time travelling Oswald chatting with his favorite cop, spinning false truths while he's at it.
Kudos: 4





	No such thing as heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Just for clarification, Sofia is only mentioned in Oswald's private thoughts (although she has no business being there either!),  
> so if you, like me, can't stand that lady, no worries, she's not showing up in here.
> 
> Hmm... might actually write something starring her later on.  
> Whether it be complimenting her character or not remains to be seen (just pointin' out that I don't do no bashing fics).  
> Oh, well, that's enough of me rambling.

"No! This is... well, this is an outrage," he protested. "A bleeding disgrace!" He barely knew why he was so angry.

At 31 he had once been a fairly calm and collected young man. At 28, he was anything but.

"It's not a fair world we live in, Oswald." _Seriously, officer, you think I don't know that?_

Shaking in sudden rage, he yelled at the top of his lungs; "If the world was fair my son would still be with me!"

Yes, Martín had been more of a son to him than anything else. A boy he had loved and cherished, only to have been taken from him like with everything else. Life had always been cruel, and to him more than to most.

It was almost strange, how calm Jim could stay, even though Oswald's sudden exclamation had clearly surprised him. "I didn't know you had a son."

Yes, like Gordon deserved to know the truth. Oswald knew better than to trust the man. Once he had dared to believe, for all the good that did him. No way Oswald would ever wear his heart on his sleeve. Not for this man.

"You wouldn't. He was taken from me before you came to Gotham." If counting the fact that he was around 14 years in the past, it wasn't really a lie when he added; "Even before I started working for Fish Mooney."

The sympathy in Jim's eyes were obviously not of the extent that the cop wouldn't try to fasten a pair of annoyingly shiny cuffs around Oswald's bony wrists.

 _It's not a fair world we live in_ , he says, and the sentence kept ringing in his ears in that mocking dance that made Oswald wish for a neck to wring. He didn't particularly care for whose it was, as long as it was a neck, and if it belonged to someone who he also couldn't stand, that would be most excellent.

Nothing excellent about the situation at hand though, and in light of that, the only thing Jim, however tentatively, could do was to ask him; "What happened...?"

Well, that was the question, wasn't it, and one Oswald had absolutely no idea of how to answer.

Memory flashed to the scene under the bridge, when Sofia Falcone had attempted to use his boy as bait, to force him to give over the rule of the underworld to her. The _bitch!_

"Kidnapping," the word slipped out of his mouth before he knew it. It was fine though, he could work with the premise that when in doubt, blame Falcone. She owed him that much.

"It wasn't..." - Think, brain, **think**! - "it wasn't _Martín_ they wanted, it was a kid in his class whose folks apparently was wealthy. Wealthy enough for that sort of thing, I guess. They mistook him for that kid because they looked a bit similar, see?"

Yes, he was fairly certain that that was common enough that Jim wouldn't even bother checking the story once he'd finally take the hint to leave him alone. Probably.

"And... well, I had a job, but... I couldn't pay the ransom."

So, okay, most of that hadn't happened, but it wasn't like Jim would ever believe him even if he had been more penchant in spewing outrageous truths, which, again, he wasn't.

"If this is some trick to-," Jim began saying, but Oswald interrupted him before he had finished his sentence.

"Do you know me to lie, Jim," he screeched, "How callous do you think I am to be making stuff up like this?"

Technically, he wasn't lying. It was mostly truth, just with one or two boulders of salt added to it.

"This... this kind of pain I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy, so don't you _dare_ suggest I'm not being truthful about it!"

He almost believed it himself, as he let the shadows of tears cloud his sight, the theatrical pause was almost like the crackles of lightening, ominous and with power.

Jim swallowed it all up, like the hopeless, little guppy Oswald knew him to be.

Another memory flashed before his eyes, of the day that macabre package had been sent to him with a child-sized fake skeleton wearing Martín's school uniform.

"They sent him back to me," Oswald said with some heat, his voice thick with emotion. "In a package. I suppose I should be grateful they were kind enough to give me back enough of his remains for a burial."

In a weird and decidedly sick way, it all made sense. If Oswald hadn't chosen a life of crime, he would have done well for himself on the stage.

He almost wished Gordon would call bullshit, but the cop never did.

"So, you see, Jim? In this world, that justice system of yours fail when it shouldn't. It benefits only those with money and power.

I had neither of those, and you tell me my son had to die because of that? In what world is that fair?"

Smiling wryly, he observed how those deep blue eyes widened, pupils dilating, if only for a second, as the man took in the story he had scrambled together so well that for all intense and purposes, it _was_ the truth.

Loathe he was to admit it, secretly it gave him a great deal of satisfaction of getting one up on the frenemy. Even if their relationship hadn't soured half as badly this time round as in that other lifetime ago.

Certainly, Oswald had never been able to trust Jim in that same fashion as he had when he had been 'young and not-so-innocent'. He also could never quite forget how empty those promises and deals of Gordon was, _had been,_ (probably) would be.

Oswald was many things, and one thing he was not was an oath-breaker. There'd be a cold day in hell before Oswald would forgive that man that Jim was not but had the potential to become.

Turned out that all the friend-that-never-was could say to that was a meaningless 'sorry for your loss'. Scoffing, he finally broke eye contact. He had no interest in halfhearted condolences.

"Sure you are..." "I mean it, Oswald," Jim cut him off. "Nobody deserves that." A long, incredulous stare. Maybe he was actually being sincere, yet Oswald felt it increasingly difficult to sympathize with the man.

"Not even a sinner like me...?"

Although the silence between them had turned into outright oppressing Oswald had no inclination of breaking it.

As always, Jim "super cop" Gordon chose the opposite. No tact, that man. None whatsoever.

"Do you know who murdered your child?"

Had he honestly asked that question? If Oswald wasn't so busy keeping his mask intact he would have cackled.

"Who cares? And no, I haven't found them."

You can't find people who never existed, or in this case, you can't kill them for crimes they haven't yet committed. If he could get away with it, he would have taken care of that Falcone bitch years ago.

As it was however... "Jim, I can assure that I have done nothing to the people of Gotham that hasn't been done to me first."

That is true. The ridicule, hurt and torture sessions - all of them a payback for a lifetime of wrongdoings.

He simply let his own skill in the art of "loosening of tongues" refine those ways, this time his moniker Penguin was revered and feared.

It was marvelous. It was empty.

"Maybe if those who carved up my boy was punished for it, I could let go of my anger." As nice as that sounded, the calm rage inside of him was too familiar a notion for him to let go of now. Without it, what would become of him? He was nothing without that tsunami of conflict. "Maybe if I killed them all I would feel better," he speculated with the same maybe that the GPD would become less of corrupted assholes the city knew and loved.

"But what are odds of that ever happening, hmm? Who's to say after all these years that would be enough?"

Turning on his heel, Oswald started to walk away. He needed a decent cup of coffee after this. One of the not-suited-for-children variety. Yes, a really large one, at that.

"Maybe, Jim, your are better off killing me now." The words, as hollow as ever, rang a familiar truth. He had said something of the same once before, hadn't he? 'Kill me, or trust me.'

 _Well_ , he thought, _trust me on this, Jim_ : "You'll never know when my heart will get the better of me and finally turn on Gotham."

A glorious notion, that. A fantasy that could never be.

He loved the city, more than anything. It was just, he also couldn't stand it. He wanted nothing to do with it, which is why he could honestly say; "Just keep in mind though, that it was **_she_** who turned on me first!"

For all of that, his being still craved it. **All of it**.

Sometimes, such as this time he wanted it to go up in flames so badly he could practically smell the fumes of imaginary smoke.

In his pocket was the matchbox with which he could incinerate everything. One day, he might actually do it.

Usually, it would take more effort to get out of an arrest, but he assumes it is that weird sense of right and wrong, added with a bucket of unwanted sympathy that persuades Jim into letting the bird-man walk away that day.

Listening to what Harvey would've called a sob-story from Hell, Jim went over every knowledge or assumption he had ever had about Oswald until then.

Admittedly, it was a shock, learning that his tentative ally had been a father. It wasn't that the Penguin was truly ugly, per say, that the idea of him settling down with a woman seemed wrong in Jim's mind.

The man wasn't a traditional beauty, far from it, but no one could deny his charismatic, if complex, persona.

Yes, Jim didn't find it that strange, though that wasn't the problem. There was something about Oswald's story that didn't add upp.

Question is, what was it? From what he knew about him, Oswald never left things up to chance, everything he did was calculated to the minuscule detail, so what did he gain by fibbing? On the other hand, if he had been completely honest, and Jim didn't believe that for even a minute, why had it seemed like a spur of the moment confession?

There were too many unanswered questions for Jim's liking. For instance, if it was true that Oswald had indeed fathered a child, how come no one knew about it? Where had the mother gone?

As far as he could recall, Mrs. Kapelput had been of the opinion that her "lovely boy" was hopelessly naive and none of his abandons had ever been in the family way. As bizarre as her convictions had been at the time, Jim couldn't help but ponder over the truth of it.

A mother knows her child, do they not?

First stop would have to be the City of records, _surely_ they would have information about this alleged child.

**Author's Note:**

> AN:
> 
> Well, well, Ozzie, careful with the smugness.  
> Things tends to go wrong whenever you're being too clever.  
> See? Already, Jim knows something's up and he's down to get to the bottom of it. 
> 
> Though, here is where the story ends.  
> This was originally supposed to be one of those multichaptered (at least 10 ch) time-travel stories (hence referenced),  
> though, I lost interest, or at least, the initial plot-line turned into a one-shot that works better as a standalone.  
> Perhaps I'll continue this one someday in the future, though i find it unlikely.  
> You're welcome to comment it though, if you feel so inclined. ^_^
> 
> An extra drabble between Jim and Oswald that was supposed to go into the "time travel story":
> 
> J: "You've never told me that."
> 
> O: "I never told you I had two step-siblings and an evil stepmother either, so what's your point?"
> 
> J: "Evil stepmother?"
> 
> O: "Yes," his thin lips formed into a humorless smile, "on account that she killed her husband, my father, that is..."
> 
> J: "Ah, and that makes her evil."
> 
> O: "No. That makes her sloppy. Considering that it was me she was trying to get rid of because she wanted my inheritance."
> 
> Knuckles turning white from clenching his hands too tight, Oswald hid them from view in his pockets.
> 
> "That she kept prancing around the mansion after that with no remorse or regret, that is what made her evil."
> 
> "I'm sorry."
> 
> Another smile plastered on his face, this one decidedly less dispassionate. In fact, one could almost call it *pleased*.
> 
> "Don't be, I've already gotten my satisfaction."


End file.
